Beijing Tightens City’s Pollution Laws

Pedestrians cross the road near the Beijing West Railway Station on a hazy day/

Reuters

Beijing’s city government on Wednesday ratified a plan that sets limits on air pollutants for the first time and imposes higher fines on polluters, but state media reported that some of the plan’s harsher penalties were nixed at the last minute.

The official Xinhua news agency said a measure that would have imposed a daily penalty on polluters—which would considerably drive up business costs—was scrapped from the plan’s initial draft. Xinhua cited a Chinese official who said the plan wasn’t able to include tougher penalties than those stipulated in national laws. However, national laws are being amended, Xinhua quoted the official as saying.

Wang Jinnan, a Beijing lawmaker and vice dean at the Chinese Academy of Environmental Planning, said the financial cost of violating Beijing’s new pollution laws were still “too low,” adding that it makes them soft and unbinding, like tofu, Xinhua said.

Beijing’s clean-air action plan, which was made public in September, calls for a 25% reduction in fine particulate matter, known as PM2.5, by 2017 from 2012 levels. The plan also calls for reducing cement capacity, limiting construction of coal-fired power plants and curbing vehicle emissions.

The plan removes the cap on fines for polluters and also reiterates that some could be held criminally liable for offenses. However, it stops short of making changes to the criminal code.

The plan’s passage comes amid another round of bad air in Beijing, which topped an air-quality index of 300 on Wednesday and Thursday. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says an air-quality index above 300 generally occurs during events such as forest fires.

The levels prompted Beijing on Thursday to issue a “blue alert” for a second time this year, according to local media, which is issued when the city’s AQI is forecast to be between 201 and 300 for 24 hours. It is the lowest level of alert, behind yellow, orange and red.

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